Column: GOP, Rediscover Your Backbone!

Please explain this: Obama is incredibly unpopular, and Obamacare is one of the main reasons, yet some Republicans are now saying it's here to stay. That is flat-out unacceptable. GOP — heal thyself.

You don't have to be a radical to understand that the GOP is afraid of its own shadow half the time, that it is suffering from an identity crisis and that it often lacks the courage of its convictions.

We've learned that it's not enough for Obama to be the worst president in the past billion years. Republicans have to give the voters a reason to vote for them and not just against his party.

Don't assume I'm being inconsistent because I have previously rejected the claim that Republicans don't have any plans to offer on health care, the economy and the rest. They definitely do, and they have offered numerous concrete ideas to reform health care, restructure entitlements, reverse our reckless course on taxing and spending, deregulate our administrative leviathan, and rebuild our national defenses.

What I'm saying — and I've said this before — is that they have to start acting as if they passionately believe in their ideas and they believe they must be adopted soon. They must make clear their urgency about our dire national situation and quit downplaying it because they're afraid of looking extreme or afraid of receiving an electoral spanking from a growing percentage of voters who are dependent on government.

Let's have more faith in the electorate. Let's have more faith in Americans. Let's not write everyone off because the Obama economy has placed so many in desperate economic straits and on some kind of government assistance.

Republicans have a duty to sell their ideas and to quit running from them. Those who want to grovel to the voters as a lesser version of the Democratic Party ought to be kicked to the curb. This country will not be saved by liberal lite. We must have a 180-degree reversal of our present course.

It has taken a while, but finally the public is waking up to Obama's destructive effect on this country. Even with a conspiratorially dishonest liberal media downplaying every negative bit of news concerning Obama and his policies, the public is still catching on. Many of Obama's formerly die-hard supporters are obviously grasping that he can no longer credibly blame his predecessor for his litany of policy disasters.

The latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll shows Obama's approval at 41 percent, "near the lowest level ever recorded in the 20 Heartland Monitor Polls since April 2009." Also: "Only one in four adults say his actions are increasing economic opportunity for people like them, also among his worst showings in the polls." Obama's numbers are particularly bad "in the seven red-leaning states" where Democrats are trying to defend their Senate seats in November.

Democrats can derive no comfort from polls showing that Congress is even less popular. These generic congressional polls always show Congress in disfavor with the public, but they have little correlation to congressional elections, especially compared with presidential approval ratings.

As I've recently written, Obama is pushing his income inequality meme as the latest iteration of his divide-and-conquer electoral strategy, but this poll suggests it's falling flat. Voters are wising to the disconnect between Obama's rhetoric and his results. They know you don't expand opportunity by beating up the rich. Even if they don't know that, they know that his policies are not remedying the problems of which he constantly complains. This poll shows that Obama's no longer escaping blame for the state of the economy.

Further, the poll reveals that only 27 percent said they believe the country is moving in the right direction, and a whopping 62 percent said it is on the wrong track. Think about that for a moment. Finally, people are awakening to the reality that Obama — not George W. Bush — "built this" economy. It's on him.

As such, it's time for Republican members of Congress such as Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers to dispense with this talk about Obamacare's being here to stay. There is no room for fatalism in a party that needs to recapture the imagination and support of the American people.

Obamacare is not here to stay. Thoughts to the contrary are noxious to the republic. Do not let this president succeed in completing his destruction of the best health care system in the history of the world just because it might be difficult to disentangle ourselves from Obamacare's poisonous tentacles.

Republicans, quit looking over your shoulders; believe in yourselves. Rediscover your backbone. Full repeal. Full reversal of Obamanomics. Pro-growth policies. Reinvigoration of the free market. Full restoration of America's strength and greatness.

David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book, "The Great Destroyer," reached No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction. Follow him on Twitter @davidlimbaugh and his website at www.davidlimbaugh.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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